The Things They Carried

I think the most vivid passage of the narrative is "They shared a weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak". These lines say alot about the characters in the narrative and about men in battle in general. Reading beyond the lines, a number of scenes painted themselves before me. These sentences talks about these men in battle with heaviness and burden in their hearts. It shows how they need each other in order to survive; they hold on to each other and they rely on each other. Sometimes, they just need each other to assure themselves that they'll be safe and that they'll live. But at the back of their minds, they know that anything can happen to them. Basically, this passage shows that men in battle are not as brave and as strong as how many people see them because their lives are at sake.

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is the central character in the narrative. He is the leader of the group of men in a war in Vietnam. In the war, he and his men carried a number of things, both abstract and concrete. Cross carried with him letters, photos, a pebble, and memories of Martha, a girl from New Jersey whom he loved. All these he carried with a doubt of her feelings for him. The recurrent mention of Martha in the narrative shows how Cross has been in loved with her and how intense his feelings for her was but he was not sure if she loves him back just as much. Because of this, he is kind of holding his feelings back. It is quite uncertain that he wants to be with Martha for the rest of his life. At the end of the day, he decided to let go of his feelings for her, blaming himself for Ted Lavender's death and thinking that it is distracting him from properly leading his men.

"They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried." It may seem negative but my favorite thing they carried is what this sentence talks about. These men in battle carry everything they can -- things used to kill, things used to remind them of the people they love, things used to protect themselves, things to make them feel complete -- but with all these is fear. Fear that the things they carried, they might not be able to control. Fear that the things they carried could be more powerful than themselves. Men in battle are usually depicted as strong, brave men. The men in the narrative carry fear and there is totally nothing wrong with it. It just shows how real they are, how they are just like ordinary people, how they become scared when holding on to their lives is not assured. Ironically, I think this makes them brave.